Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-11-23
GOOD WORK By Villas.

A Mo mber of tho Cabinet Who Has Won
Golden Opinions.
With reference to the rumor that Post
Secretary of the Interior, ". A. Croffut
writes from Washington to the Pittsburg
Commercial Gazette (Rep.) as follows:
cannot believe that his transfer will
take place. In the first place he has made
phenomenal record in the Postofice De-
partment-tEere is no denying that. and
Mr.. Villas ranks with Montgomery Blair
and CressWell, among the ablest post
master generals the country has had for
forty years. CressWell was poor Judge
of men, and was constantly laundering in
his appointments, but he Initiated and
carried forward some notable improve
ments. Blair did still better, for he had
al intuitive insight into men, as well as
large grasp OF measures. It was under
his administration that the money-order
system was introduced. Villas has studied
hard and has become acquainted with the
working details of the establishment. For
this he was peculiarly well equipped, as
he bad executive experience and under
stands bookkeeping SO well that he can
60 into bank and ascertain its condition
as quickly and accurately as an expert ex-
&miner.
At the top of the hydra headed Interior
Department Villas would be as bewildered
as Lamar has been. II is place where
neither brains nor industry will count It
is congeries Of incongruous bureaus
Land, Indians, Pensions, Patents "a pot
pourri Ufvaried meddlesomeness,a sort of
clean and respectable slop bucket for ex-
ecutive fragments. l will not believe
that Mr.. Villas wants it till 1 hear ne has
accepted. Villas is by no mesns
fgure-head. He has we'll
defined ambitions in the postoffice.
One of these is to organize some uniform
method of paying for railroad service,
and the other is to straighten out the
clerk-hire question, and establish rule
to govern it. Both of these important
matters are now helter-skelter, settled
according to no system, but merely oy
caprice, guess work and favor. My notion
is that Villas and General Black want to
stay exactly where they are, and that the
President will I'LL the vacancy which
LHmar's elevation to the Supreme bench
makes by calling the Assistant Secretary
to "come up hieher."
General Villas, by the way, has abundant
Cause for sef-congratulation in the sue
cess of his measures for the ocean mails.
It will be remembered what tremendous
and noisy protest there was two years
ago, when he refused to subsidZe psrtic-
ulsr lines Of steamers and persisted in
the plan of sending the oceanic mails by
the first and fastest ships going A very
hurricane was around his ears for time,
and it was declared that the postal
system was crippled and even paralyzed.
The answer came TO the Post
master-General on Saturday in
the shape Of letter, which certainly may
be said to be settler. It is signed by
two or three hundred of the wealthiest
and busiest bankers, merchants and i'm
porters of New York city, thanking the
Postmaster General for the excellence of
the International service he has establish
ed, assuring him that it Is the most salts
factory they have ever known, and asking
him TO try and induce other nations to
adopt the plan that the United States
now follows. This expression Is signed
by men representing nearly thousand
million dollars"